Mistakes of Cycling Nutrition

Sometimes as a newcomer to the sport, it’s easy to ignore aspects of fuelling and eating. When you get into cycling finding the lightest carbon fibre component seems much more interesting than discovering the right combination of energy drinks. But, whearas light weight components may save a couple of seconds, making mistakes in eating and drinking can lose several minutes and turn a good ride into a painful ride. These are mistakes in cycling nutrition that are quite easy to make at some stage in your cycling career.

1. Not eating enough.

A newbie to cycling may be surprised at how many calories you can burn when cycling. You need to eat much more than usual. If you can’t get the calories, you will feel tired or at worst, suffer the dreadful ‘bonk’ where your glycogen levels are completely diminished.

Don’t forget you may not actually feel hungry. You have to eat well before you actually feel like it. Also, a rule is to eat for the next day too. The best way to help recovery is to replenish the stores you can whilst actually cycling.

2. Dehydration

Again it is easy to become dehydrated when cycling because you can sweat more than you realise. On really hot days, you may need unto a 500ml bottle every half an hour. That’s a lot of bottles for a six hour ride. On cool days, of course it will be much lower than usual. It can be hard to plan for how much water to take. You may train in cool temperatures, but if you race in higher temperatures it can change all your plans.

• As a very rough guide, check the colour of your urine. You will see signs of dehydration.

3. Mixing Energy Gels and Energy Drinks

Energy gels are concentrated energy drinks. They need to be taken with water to dilute the concentrated electrolyte composition. If you take energy gels with energy drinks you will end up with a too concentrated solution in your stomach. If you want energy drinks and energy gels, make sure you get isotonic energy gels (already mixed to right concentration) (see: energy drinks)

4. Caffeine on hot days

Be wary of taking a lot of caffeine when really hot. Caffeine has properties which dehydrate. The stimulant effect can be offset by the dehydration effect.

5. Stomach not used to quantity of Energy Drink / Gel

Many cyclists have had the experience of preparing very closely for big race / ride / sportive. You work out how many energy gels you will need and end up taking 6 during the course of your ride. However, to your cost you find your stomach can’t cope with that quantity of energy gel as you’ve never tried it before.

Test energy gels during training rides. Take a mixture of food sources and make sure you don’t over use particular gels you aren’t used to.

6. Waiting for Meal Times

You were probably told the old saying ‘if you eat that i will spoil your appetite’ so we don’t snack before meals. What can happen is that we finish our ride and then wait two hours for our evening meal. But, we shouldn’t wait to eat something. The time just after a ride is widely said to be the best time to replenish energy stores and help muscles recover. I’ve become a bigger fan of specific recovery drinks – mixture of carbs and protein and electrolytes. These help rehydrate and give easily digestible energy.

It can be a nice feeling getting really hungry after long ride, but it’s not desirable. When cycling and eating large quantities of calories we need to spread it over the more than two or three traditional meals.

7. Junk Food Diet

If you shop from your local petrol station and are constantly eating on the move, you can easily end up eating a lot of processed ‘junk’ food with low nutritional value. It’s the kind of diet that slowly decreases your health and performance; you you can ‘get away’ with eating such a diet, but you will not be in optimal health. If you are cycling a lot you need to take more care of the body and it is important to get a wider variety of food sources and vitamins. Getting them from fresh food is the best way. I don’t feel guilty for eating the occasional junk food, but you want to develop good habits of eating good food that is low on artificial additives and high on natural goodness.

8. High GI at Wrong Time

Taking foods really high in GI when you’re not exercising can lead to spikes in blood sugar level that leaves you feeling tired later.

Similarly when riding really hard you need High GI foods, when you’re cycling it’s not the time to take lentils and carrots.

There more info here on constant energy levels.

9. The Fanatics Diet.

There’s nothing worse than someone whose just discovered the ‘perfect diet’ ‘perfect food’ which they now think is the ultimate diet. Good nutrition involves common sense and a wide variety of different foods and approaches. There’s no simple formula like the Atkins diet e.t.c. For example, I think knowing about GI foods is very helpful, but it’s not the ultimate guide, and if you eat a plate of potatoes (high GI) the night before you’re not going to become a bad cyclist. There’s a wide range of things to consider.

10. Lack of Balance

I remember as a student, I used to think a cyclist needed lots of carbohydrate, so I ate a lot of rice and pasta. It was cheap, but, that’s only part of the food triangle. Rough food triangle:

• Carbs – 40%
• Protein – 30%
• Fat – 30%

A cyclist needs a balanced diet carbs, protein and fats. I don’t actually get round to measuring the quantities I take, but just seek to eat a balanced diet. When you’re consuming much more quantities of food, it makes sense to increase the % of food in Carbohydrate, as the extra energy needs to be carbs.

11. Hard to Digest Food when riding.

When riding your stomach is under pressure because blood is being used to cycle. Therefore, it’s not the time to eat high fat, rich food. I take a mixture of energy drinks and a few energy bars to give variety.

Related

• Cycling Nutrition Tips